One of the last living and most wanted World War II war crimes suspects is due to go on trial today in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, charged in connection with the murders of civilians in Serbia.

Sandor Kepiro, 97, is a former Hungarian gendarme, or armed military police officer. He is accused of participating in the Novi Sad massacre of January 1942, in which Hungarian forces killed more than 1,200 civilians.

Kepiro is suspected of involvement in the murder of more than 30 Serbian and Jewish civilians.

Kepiro was sentenced to 10 years in prison for war crimes by a Hungarian court in 1944, but he was freed after the conviction was quashed by authorities of Hungary's fascist regime that was backed by Nazi Germany.

After leaving the country, he was found guilty in absentia by a Hungarian court in 1946.

Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff of the Wiesenthal Central announced in 2006 that he had discovered that Kepiro had returned to Hungary after decades of living in South America.